I'm going to begin as I have rarely, if ever, begun a sermon, by changing the title. This is not because the first title there on your Order of Service is markedly naff, although I fear it is, but because I want us to focus as we start on a slightly different idea: an idea that I think is central to what Peter is saying as he gets into the main message of this first letter of his. My changed title is 'Dare to be Different'.
I want to read to you something from one of James Dobson's books about adolescents: 'A team of doctors decided to conduct an experiment to study the ways in which group pressure influences young people. To accomplish this they invited ten teenagers into a room and told them they were going to evaluate their perception in order to learn how well each student could see the front of the room from where he sat. Actually all the teenagers were very close to the front of the room and everybody could see quite easily.
'What the doctors were actually studying was not the students eyesight, but the effect of group pressure. The doctors said, "We are going to hold up some cards at the front of the room. On each card there are three lines (lines A, B and C) of varying lengths. In some cases line A will be the longest, in some line B etc. Several dozen cards will be shown with the lines in a different order. We'll hold them up and we'll point to each line in turn. When we point to the longest line please raise your hand to show that you know that it's longer than the others." They repeated the directions to be sure everybody had understood and then they raised the first card and pointed to the first line.
'What one student didn't know was that the other nine had been secretly informed earlier to vote for the second longest line. In other words, they had been told to vote wrongly. The doctors held up the first card and pointed to line A which was clearly shorter than line B. At this point all nine students cooperated in the scheme and raised their hands. The fellow being studied looked around in disbelief. It was obvious that line B was the longest line but everybody seemed to think that line A was longer. He later admitted that he thought, "I can't have been listening during the directions, somehow I missed the point and I'd better do what everybody else is doing or they'll laugh at me." So he carefully raised his hand with the rest of the group.
' Then the researchers explained the directions again: " . . . vote for the longest line. Raise you hand when we point to the longest line." It couldn't have been more simple. Then they held up the second card and again nine people voted for the wrong line. The confused fellow became more tense over his predicament. But eventually he raised his hand with the group once again. Over and over he voted with the group even though he knew that they were wrong.
' This one young man was not unusual, In fact, more than 75% of young people tested behaved that same way. They sat there, time after time, saying that a short line was longer than a long line. They simply didn't have the courage to say, "The group is wrong. I can't explain why, but you guys are all confused."
'A small percentage (only 25 out of 100) had the courage to take their stand against the group even when the majority was obviously wrong.'
We do find it very hard indeed to stand out against the crowd. The thought of being different, of being peculiar, of being the odd one out is unnerving to us even in adult life. We are under great pressure from our peers. There was a man who purchased an old, broken grandfather clock from an antique shop. On being told that there would have to be an additional £10 delivery charge he decided that he would carry it round the corner to the car park and put it on the roof-rack of his car. So he got it up on his shoulder and he lurched out of the shop and down the pavement — but as he turned the corner, the end of the grandfather clock swung out into the road and sent a passing bicyclist sprawling. As the bicyclist sat up in the road and looked up at this man on the pavement with a grandfather clock over his shoulder he said, "Why on earth can't you wear a wrist-watch like the rest of us?"
The call to the Christian to be different, to stand out from the crowd is unmistakable in 1 Peter. Look at the verses we've just had read to us: 'Do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance. Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct . . .' (v. 14,15). If there's one thing that you and I sense about the word 'holy' it is that it isn't a description of the way that the rest of Cambridge behaves most of the time; ' . . . be holy yourselves in all your conduct . . . .'
Look on to verses 17 and 18: 'If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile. You know that you are ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors.' And then verse 22: 'Now that you have purified yourselves by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart.' Look at verse 1 of chapter 2: 'Rid yourselves therefore of all malice and all guile, insincerity, envy and all slander.' What makes such behaviour hard for you and me is not just that it goes against our natural self-indulgence, our natural desire to do what suits and pleases us most, it is also that it makes us different.
T.S. Elliot wrote in The Family Reunion: 'In a world of fugitives, the person taking the other direction will appear to run away.' Christian behaviour can appear eccentric and escapist in a world conditioned by the mass media and its advertising power. It singles us out. So why should I dare to be different?
That's Peter's first point, here in these verses: Why? What motives are there? And he provides us with three. He encourages us to look on, to look up and to look back: three motives for daring to be different.
(1a) Look On (v. 13).
' Therefore prepare your minds for action, discipline yourselves, set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed.'
'Prepare your minds for action': we have to bring our minds to bear on how we behave. Christian behaviour is not eccentricity for its own sake. It's not fanaticism. It is disciplined, sober, balanced, thought-out — because it has its eyes on the future: 'Set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed.'
We developed this at some length last Sunday, when we were studying 1:3-5, and I'm not going to spend further time on it today. But Peter's first motive for us to act differently from normal human behaviour is because we have a certain future as Christians. We know where we're going: we know we're going to die, we know what lies beyond death. We looked at length at this last week: 'the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed,' as verse 13 puts it. You and I as Christians are not racing towards grace: it is Jesus who will bring it to us. And so we can live differently now: 'Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance.' Notice in passing how the Bible describes my non-Christian life. I'm always struck by that (again in v. 18). The way it describes my non-Christian life is very striking.
(1b) Look Up (vv. 15-17).
'But instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; for it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy." If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile.'
Holiness is that quality of God that is absolutely opposed to everything that is evil and corrupt and depraved and wicked. To be invited to imitate the holiness of God — "You shall be holy, for I am holy" — may be awesome but it is also refreshingly simple. No encyclopaedic knowledge of regulations and directions and prohibitions is required of us. Only a total heart-response to the character of the God who calls us to be His children, who makes us His children as He is our Father — which cannot but shape our behaviour to be like His: 'If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile.'
Our moral reference point, our moral authority, is not a code (not actually the Ten Commandments) it is the character of a Person, the character of God that those Ten Commandments express for us.
Many of us are far too conscious of what other people think of our behaviour. I think I would say that of every single one of us here this morning. With perhaps just one or two exceptions, every one of us is far too conscious of what other people think of our behaviour; and too rarely do we ask ourselves the question, "What does God think of this action, this thought, this word I'm about to speak?" And if we did, we would live differently from the way we do. "Look up," says Peter. Don't look around you: look up, and your and my behaviour will be very different from what it is.
(1c) Look Back (vv. 18-21).
'You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors [there again is a description of my non-Christian life], not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. He was destined before the foundation of the world but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God.'
What stands between me now, as a Christian, and the patterns of behaviour of the rest of the world (what Peter calls 'the futile ways inherited from your ancestors', the empty way of life handed down to you)? Is it some decision that I took at some point in the past? Is it some new leaf that I turned over at some stage? Or is it my present moral achievement: how good a life I'm leading at the moment? "Oh, no," says Peter, "Oh, no." It is nothing that I have done. It is no achievement of mine. It is something that God has done. That's what stands between me and the futility of a life without God. Look again at verses 18,19: 'You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish.' It is Jesus who stands between me and the futility of life in this world without God: the realisation of the truth of the Cross of Christ. 'He was destined before the foundation of the world but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake' (v. 20). From outside the no boundary condition of the universe He who is before the big bang and after the great collapse arrowed into history for your sake and mine. Was it worth it?— we might want to say. Was it worth it to pay this price? God's answer is an emphatic, "Yes!"
Back in the 1950s, Billy Graham did his first big crusade here in the United Kingdom. Before one such crusade he was interviewed by a reporter called Kenneth Allsop on the radio. As the interview ended Kenneth Allsop asked, "It has cost many thousands of pounds to mount this crusade, Dr. Graham, how many converts are you hoping for? How many converts will make all this huge expense worthwhile?" Billy Graham said, "You know, just one would make it all worthwhile. Just one convert — just you, Kenneth."
For just you and me God stepped into history, to save us. He had planned our salvation before there was a man or a woman to be saved: 'He was destined before the foundation of the world but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God' (vv. 20,21). What a waste if at the end of all that you and I do not trust! Jesus didn't die and God didn't raise Him again for you and I to be uncertain about where we stand with God. God did these things in Jesus so that you and I can have confidence.
It isn't arrogant to be sure. If it depended on how good I am it would be very arrogant indeed. Are you one of those persons who are irritated by the Christian who says, "I know I am a Christian. I know I'm saved. I know I'm born again"? Yes, that would be a very arrogant, provocative and irritating remark if my Christianity depended on how good a person I am: because it would be a moral boast. But if, on the other hand, it depends on the action of God, what He has done, then it is insulting to Him for us not to be sure. We're actually spitting in the face of God to say, "Well, I try to be a Christian; I'm hoping to be; I'm doing my best." It is setting at naught what God has done for us, because our confidence is not in ourselves, it is in Christ: ' Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God' (v. 21). They are not set on your moral achievements, not on the leaves you have turned over or the decisions you have taken!
I wish I had the chance to stop every person here this morning at the door as you left, and to ask each person, "Do you know that you are saved?" And I would want to continue in conversation with you until I'd got one of two answers from you: "Yes, thank God, I know Jesus died for me," or, "No, I'm afraid I've not yet accepted that for myself." And I wouldn't let you get away with, "Well, I hope so. I'm trying to be. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and doing my best."
You see, it isn't my job to move you from saying, "No," to saying, "Yes." That's between your spirit and God. But it is my task to try to make sure that you know that there only are those two answers to that question. If you're a Christian to know that you're a Christian and know that you're going to heaven; and if you're not then to know that you're not a Christian this morning because you've not yet trusted what God has done for you. It's not a moral verdict on you to say that you're not a Christian. There are many people here today who are not Christians who live very much better lives than I live and than many of us here who are Christians live. The difference is whether or not we've got Jesus Christ crucified, between us and the rest of our life: whether we look back to what God has done for us. Please don't muddle it up with how good you are, what you're doing for God. That will never get you right in His sight.
Oh dear! I have spent almost all my time on the 'Why?' — Peter's answer to why Christians should dare to be different: because we look on to a certain future, we look up to a Holy God, because we look back to a Saviour who died and rose again in order that you and I might be Christians today — three powerful motives for different behaviour.
But in what should this different behaviour consist? I'm just going to give you footnotes on these last two points as we look at the 'what' (what this different behaviour consists of); and then the 'how' (how in practice we can live in that particularly different way).
(2) What Can We Do?
The answer is in a single word. It's in the word 'love': 'Now that you have purified yourselves by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart' (v. 22). God brings us back into a relationship with Himself in order to send us out into relationship with one another. That's why many churches exchange the peace specifically at Communion services (like we're having today). Because it's as we remember what brings us back into relationship with God, the forgiveness of our sins, that we know we have a relationship with others and must reach out in love to them however difficult that is for our personalities (and I know it is very difficult for some of us). Christianity is a community experience: we live for and with and through others.
Interestingly, that experiment that I read to you from the James Dobson book at the beginning, had a significant postscript. Let me read to you the next paragraph: 'Another interesting characteristic was released by this study: if just one other student recognised (i.e. voted for) the right line, then the chances were greatly improved that the fellow who was being studied would also do what he thought was right.' Isn't that interesting? 'This means that if you have even one friend,' writes Dobson, 'who will stand with you against the group you probably will have more courage too.'
We are community creatures, made to love God and to love one another. So chapter 2 verse 1 is the other side of the coin of love: 'Rid yourselves therefore of all malice and all guile, insincerity, envy and all slander.' Those are the enemies of love: the vices which attack others in one way or another. You and I are to turn our faces away from them and towards love, to lay down our lives for one another in love in a way that marks us out as quite different from our contemporaries.
Peter also has something to say about how we can live this way. He has told us 'why' (our motives for daring to be different); he has told us 'what' (this one word 'love' — that is what should be the marked difference in the Christian's life). Now, finally, the 'how' in terms of the resource that God has put at our disposal.
(3) How Can We Live This Way?
'You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God; for "All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures for ever." That word is the good news that was announced to you' (1:23-25).
Notice that according to verse 23 we have been born again 'through the . . . word of God.' And the next two verses stress the permanence of the word of God: that it endures for ever, it abides for ever. You and I are not tourists, we are not visitors, in the Christian life. We have permanent residence there because it is God's word that we're relying on: a word that never fails and that endures for ever. This is what provides us with the security to love. It is the fact that we are permanently His; we belong to Him; it's a permanent relationship with God.
You see, we're not loving in order to stay in a relationship with God. It is established by His word to us, not by our love to Him or by our love to other people. So we love within a secure and permanent relationship. That is what Peter is telling us about the word of God, the part it plays in this love. It assures us of the permanence of the relationship.
But he says more about the word of God: 'Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation; if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good' (2:2,3). Now that milk is again God's word which not only provides us with the security that enables us to love, it also nourishes us on the goodness of God, day by day, so that we may grow more and more loving. As we read the Bible we come to know by experience (which is what that word 'taste' means) what God is like, and we grow up to be more and more like Him.
It is the Bible that teaches us to look on to that certain future, to look up to that Holy Father God, to look back to the death and resurrection of Jesus so that we know why we should dare to be different. It is the Bible that teaches us of the secure and permanent relationship in which we can love, so that we can know what this different behaviour consists of and how we can live in this different way. So let us meditate upon God's word, and let us take it seriously.
Indeed, in obedience to its command we are going to meet now around this table together to remember our Lord's death: what stands between us and the futility of a life without God, providing us with that permanent security of love.